~ * love * grace * compassion *

The fullness found in emptiness

Recently, I was on the cusp of saying “yes” to an opportunity. I wanted the “yes” more than anything, but I felt as though my heart was giving me a firm tug to sit and to wait, to listen before I jumped into a hurried “yes”.

It was hard to open my hands once I set this opportunity down. I wanted to hold onto this option; to the “yes” instead of embracing the “no, not yet” I realized I needed utter. To say “no” to this is to say “yes” to love, to family, to faith–and therein is the trick: to follow that still small voice that calls me to make choices that support wholeness instead of a fractured existence.

I can open my hands because the emptiness is not empty. Not having my hands full with anything is freeing–scary, but freeing. It’s just like silence: full, rich, multilayered, open to the work of the Spirit. It lacks for nothing.

Yet, it can be uncomfortable not to have a distraction, a focus, a direction to point my energy. Being still, present, and available to the emptiness allows me to ponder how I want to fill this space; to consider what infuses me with light, joy, and excited possibility.

But I don’t choose anything.

I sit still and open my hands in my lap.

Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and striving after the wind.
~ Ecclesiastes 4:5 ~